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Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Interview - Daniella Germain

I first encountered Daniella Germain's work through the Koko Black drawing prize,
in which she was a self-confessed serial entrant. Her work always stood
out as extremely sweet, with delicate details, and very accomplished. So it wasn't long before she was completing commissioned illustrations
for the prestigious chocolate company for their packaging. Having
changed careers after many years in an unrelated office job, Daniella has hit the
ground running. Check out this impressive list of design and illustration work already! Daniella authored, designed and illustrated My Abuela's Table (a collection of her Mexican grandmother's recipes)
which has been shortlisted for 'Best Designed Cookbook' in this year's
APA Book Design Awards. Her most recent illustrated book is Sweetie! (check it out here). And she's only just getting started! Read on to
hear the incredible story of how she got her break in illustration and
design. Welcome, Daniella!

Daniella Germain

Tell us a bit about yourself, your work and achievements.

I’m a Melbourne based illustrator and
graphic designer. I live with my fiancé and 2 fur kids in the
lovely, creative suburb of Northcote. I studied Communication Design
at RMIT, finishing my degree around 18 months ago. I wasn’t
entirely sure what I was going to be doing once I finished my
studies, but I fortuitously fell into book design and illustration –
luckily the two career choices I was tossing up between! Last June,
my very first book, My Abuela’s Table was published by Hardie Grant Books. My Abuela’s Table was an end of year university
assignment, completed for a publication elective. As I said, I was
tossing up between being an illustrator and book designer before I
finished uni, so what better way to marry these skills by completely
illustrating a cookbook of my Mexican grandmother’s recipes! I was
lucky enough to have my book noticed by the MD of Hardie Grant (Julie
Pinkham) who had come to RMIT to judge our final folios. Less than two
months later they offered me a book deal! The rest is history. Thanks
to this lucky break I am now illustrating and designing full time.
Hurrah!

When did you know you wanted to work creatively (from a young age or did you come to it later?) and what steps did you take to make it happen? I think I always wanted to work in a
creative industry. I used to write and illustrate books when I was a
kid, I was obsessed with fonts when computers started getting a bit
more snazzy (yes, I am showing my age), and I drew, painted and made
things…a lot! However, I was never all that confident I could make
a career out of it. I ended up taking the ‘safe’ path and studied
psychology straight out of school and spent years working in
behaviour research. Just before I turned 30, I decided that it was
‘now or never’, took the plunge, and applied to study
communication design. It is, without a doubt, the best decision I
ever made.

Could you describe a typical work day? How do you balance art and the administration side of freelancing? I don’t really have a typical work
day…it really depends what work I have on! If I’m working on an
illustrative-heavy job, I would probably set myself up on our kitchen
bench (the best height for doing illustration work!) and throw myself
into it…but giving myself lots of breaks to avoid RSI.
Unfortunately, working from home means my ‘breaks’ involve
putting loads of washing on, walking the dogs, replying to
emails…etc! It’s great though. I wouldn’t swap it for anything.
I’m not as disciplined with breaks when I am working on book design
work though. Days like this, I am glued to my computer all day. I
enjoy it so much I don’t feel the hours slip by but my wrists and
back make me pay later on.
Administration? Um…well, I am not
very good at that side of things. What creative person is!? I try to
get any admin out of the way first thing in the morning. I should
probably devote more time to admin, but it’s hard when the other
stuff is so much fun!

Do you have any routines or rituals you perform before starting a day's work or before you start working on something new? Is there a difference to how you approach design work as opposed to illustration assignments? And how do you motivate yourself? When I first started freelancing, there
were a few days there where I was working in my pyjamas…just
because I could! (I worked 7 years 9am-5pm in an office, so I needed
to enjoy for a while!) But now, I have my ritual of shower, coffee,
breakfast and then I spend some time looking at wedding blogs (for
the moment! I’m getting married in November). If I allow myself
time in the mornings to do a bit of wedding swooning then I am much
less likely to procrastinate during the day (it’s very distracting
planning a wedding!).

I probably work a little differently
with illustration jobs. I to give myself a lot of time to research
ideas and sketch etc, while design jobs I generally jump on the
computer and start playing with things straight away (probably a
reflection of the work itself I guess). Motivation is sometimes difficult if
I’m not feeling particularly creative. Deadlines always help push
me into gear but it is challenging when the creativity just doesn’t
seem to flow. Spending time looking at blogs, books and magazines
tends to spark ideas and I can move from being completely unmotivated
to being super excited about a project very quickly!

Daniella's home studio

What are your favourite tools/materials for creating? Drawing in lead pencil is my all time
favourite. I think because that’s how I started drawing and I think
there is something so lovely about a pencil sketch, even if it’s a
bit rough. Watercolour is obviously another love of mine. I’ve only
been painting in watercolour for a couple of years, so there is still
so much to learn with watercolour. I love teaching myself new skills
and seeing progress in my work.

What do you do when you have a creative block and need to 'refill the well'? Hmm…as mentioned, blogs, books,
magazines etc. But sometimes these hinder rather than help if I am
feeling particularly down about a job! When I am really stuck, I take
my dogs down to the park and completely forget about deadlines and
work (I try anyway!). If this break isn’t long enough, I resign
myself to taking a day off work. It is usually a more productive
thing to do rather than digging myself further into a creative rut.
Retail therapy also works – especially buying new paints or paper
;-)

Thanks, Daniella. Your work is just beautiful and the story of how you changed careers to something that you love is inspiring. Thanks so much for your time today!

Every Wednesday I interview a creative individual (artists, illustrators, designers, crafters, writers and bloggers). If you'd like to be notified of new posts follow this blog through Facebook, Twitter or Google Friend Connect. If there's a creative individual you'd like to see in the Wednesday interview I'd love to hear your suggestion! artbywiley[at]rocketmail.com